1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to land leveling devices and more specifically it relates to a land smoother and packer system for smoothing and packing irregularities in a ground surface.
Fields and pastures often have mounds of dirt, rocks and ravines that are difficult to navigate with machinery and equipment. Dirt mounds are created by gophers, ground squirrels, badgers, foxes moles and other rodents. Dirt mounds created by animals often times contaminate a whole field. Ravines are created by water runoff within hilly land. Mounds of dirt and rocks cause a field to be extremely rough for a user to navigate through causing them to drive slower. Mounds of dirt and rocks also cause damage to machinery such as mowers and swathers. Hence, there is a significant need for an implement that will smooth and pack a ground surface to reduce mounds of dirt, rocks and ravines.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Ground leveling devices have been in use for years. Typically, a ground lever includes vehicles such as maintainers. A conventional ground leveling device generally has only one blade. Most conventional ground leveling devices allow the blade to be pivoted for directing the flow of dirt. Conventional ground leveling devices allow the ground surface to be graded, however conventional ground leveling devices are not designed for skimming a ground surface for removing irregularities in the ground surface.
Examples of ground leveling devices include U.S. Pat. No. 3,889,760 to Manor; U.S. Pat. No. 3,110,973 to A. G. Reynolds; U.S. Pat. No. 3,448,814 to T. A. Bentley, et al; Pat. No. 90-169676 to Buldeskul; U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,809 to Summach et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,487,429 to Gates; U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,489 to Just et al; U.S. Pat. No. 4,479,549 to Fegley; U.S. Pat. No. 900,822 to S. D. Beum which are all illustrative of such prior art.
Manor (U.S. Pat. No. 3,889,760) discloses a combined smoother and roller-packer assembly. Manor teaches a straight blade with a pair of side shields, a three-point hitch, ad a roller-packer.
A. G. Reynolds (U.S. Pat. No. 3,110,973) discloses a land smoother system. A. G. Reynolds teaches a pair of blades disposed forwardly of the wheels while a third blade rearwardly of the wheels has its front face tilted forwardly at a steeper angle with respect to the horizontal ground surface.
T. A. Bentley, et al (U.S. Pat. No. 3,448,814) discloses a grader bucket construction. Bentley teaches a bucket having a lower scraping edge at the rear of the bucket, plow blades at the front of the bucket, raking tines between the scraping edge and the plow blades, and a grooved roller mounted to the rear of the bucket rear.
While these devices may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they are not as suitable for smoothing and packing irregularities in a ground surface. Conventional ground levelers do not provide a packing system that packs the ground surface after the grading.
In these respects, the land smoother and packer system according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of smoothing and packing irregularities in a ground surface.